• René Clément – La baby-sitter aka Jeune fille libre le soir (1975)

    1971-1980CrimeFranceMysteryRené Clément

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    Quote:
    Whatever one says about the plot of this film is going to be a spoiler. Let’s just say that a girl takes a baby-sitting job for one night and in the morning finds that things are not what they seemed and she is in a big load of trouble.

    The film has been trashed by just about everybody who ever bothered to write about it, and that’s unfair. At least among Clément’s thrillers – Les felins, Le passager de la pluie, La course du lièvre à travers les champs, etc – it can stand its ground, sharing their dreamlike ambiguity and opaque plot structure. It may not be a masterpiece, but it’s certainly a worthwhile couple of hours.Read More »

  • Wiktor Grodecki – Telo bez duse AKA Body Without Soul (1996)

    1991-2000Czech RepublicDocumentaryQueer Cinema(s)Wiktor Grodecki

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    Quote:
    An unflinching portrait of life on the post-Communist streets of Prague where young men find it all too easy to pick up extra money as porno models and hustlers. Their clients consist largely of German, Swiss, and Dutch tourists in search of cheap sex – and for additional income they make pornos on the side. Along the way they are ripped off, abused, and degraded until they simply wear out.Read More »

  • Gus Van Sant – Last Days (2005)

    Drama2001-2010Gus Van SantUSA

    Synopsis
    Last Days is filmmaker Gus Van Sant’s fictional meditation on the inner turmoil that engulfs a brilliant, but troubled musician in the final hours of his life. Michael Pitt (The Dreamers, Hedwig and The Angry Inch) stars as Blake, an introspective artist whose success has left him in a lonely place, where livelihoods rest on his shoulders, and old friends regularly tap him for money and favors. Last Days follows Blake through a handfull of hours he spends in and near his wooded home, a fugitive from his own life. Expanding on the elliptical style forged in his previous two films, Gerry and the Palme d’Or winning Elephant, Van Sant layers images and sounds to articulate an emotional landscape creating a dynamic work about a soul in transition.Read More »

  • David Verbeek – Full Contact (2015)

    2011-2020David VerbeekDramaNetherlandsThriller

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    Quote:
    Full Contact is a contemporary tale of a man trying to find new purpose in life after accidentally bombing a school through a remotely operated drone plane. Ivan, operating the plane from a far away air force base, has never been to the foreign countries of his attacks, nor has he ever touched the plane he uses to kill. Modern warfare keeps him safe and disconnected from his prey. However, after this incident Ivan’s disconnectedness starts to apply to everything in his life. He is overwhelmed by feelings of guilt that he is unable to process.Read More »

  • Colin Kennedy – Swung (2015)

    2011-2020Colin KennedyDramaUnited Kingdom

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Quote:
    David’s life is on the slide: he’s in the middle of a divorce, broke and ‘can’t get it up’. His girlfriend, Alice, is his rock, but the magazine she writes for is going down and the pressure is on to find a story. While job hunting online, David stumbles across the perfect antidote to his boredom: a ‘Swingers’ site. The resulting inbox of lewd invitations on the home-laptop justifiably upsets Alice, until she realises this could be just the ‘story’ she needs. The idea of uncovering the swinging scene causes quite a stir in Alice’s office and, much to David’s chagrin, she is urged to pursue the story. Their first reluctant foray is an hysterically low-rent initiation, however, an unexpected upturn for David’s manhood is all the extra encouragement they need. As events accelerate beyond their control the once adoring couple become lost and fundamental questions are asked of their relationship and them as individuals. In darkness, touched by many others, they will have to find themselves…Read More »

  • Zeki Ökten & Yilmaz Güney – Sürü AKA The Herd (1979)

    1971-1980DramaTurkeyZeki Ökten and Yilmaz Güney

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    Synopsis:
    Sürü portrays the lives of desperate Kurdish farmers in Turkey’s backward Southeast. An impoverished family, already suffering from the effects of a blood feud with a neighbouring clan, has to transport a herd of sheep to the capital city of Ankara. The episodic narrative follows them from the wastes of Turkey’s mountainous Southeast, to an apocalyptic train ride, and finally to the big city itself. Along the way, we watch the herd gradually depleted: first, as bribes that have to be paid to officials and train conductors, then by illness and injury, and then by sabotage. In Ankara, the family is torn apart by madness, death, and poverty.Read More »

  • Don Siegel – Count the Hours (1953)

    USA1951-1960Don SiegelFilm NoirThriller

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    SYNOPSIS: A defense lawyer risks his career to expose a killer no one else believes exists in this tense noir thriller.

    When a farmer and his housekeeper are murdered by an intruder, the police arrest George Braden (John Craven), a hired hand who confesses to spare his pregnant wife Ellen (Teresa Wright) the stress of interrogation. Angering the tight-knit community by agreeing to defend the accused, attorney Doug Madison ( Macdonald Carey) tries but loses the case, and Braden is sentenced to die. With time running out and the execution just hours away, Madison races the clock to find the real killer and prove his client’s innocence. Eerily anticipating the 1959 killings that would later inspire In Cold Blood, Count the Hours was shot by John Alton, an Oscar-winning cinematographer whose credits include the classic noirs He Walked by Night, Raw Deal and T-Men.Read More »

  • Serif Gören & Yilmaz Güney – Umut AKA Hope (1970)

    1961-1970DramaSerif Gören and Yilmaz GüneyTurkey

    Free Image Hosting at www.ImageShack.us

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Synopsis:
    In this bleak tragedy, a crude and illiterate man who drives a horse-drawn taxi survives his meager existence by hoping each day that this will be the day he wins the lottery. One day his coach is hit by a car, killing one of his two horses and damaging the buggy. Because the automobile driver has social standing, the traffic judge rules in favor of the automobile driver, and does not give the poor man any damages. Creditors soon remove everything from his house except the remaining horse and damaged buggy. Despairing, he strikes out at his family and anyone weaker than he is. Eventually, he joins a wandering “holy man” on a quest for desert gold, and goes mad in the process.Read More »

  • Edwin Zbonek – Der Henker von London AKA The Mad Executioners (1963)

    1961-1970DramaEdwin ZbonekGermanyThriller

    29f7c043f76a2bde437fd0d52a185152

    Synopsis:
    ‘A band of hooded men have formed a court and they are exacting justice upon the criminals who have escaped the reach of the law. The sentence they exact is death by hanging. Using the hangman’s rope from the Scotland Yard Museum they leave their victims hanging from various locations with a file detailing the case against them pinned to the body. Scotland Yard is stumped and have assigned their best man to break the case. Meanwhile another fiend is on the loose, one who is neatly severing the heads of young women. The bodies are found the heads are not.’
    – dbborroughsRead More »

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